Gore Adds Former Whip To Campaign

By RICHARD L. BERKE

Published: May 11, 1999

WASHINGTON, May 10—
Vice President Al Gore, seeking to add political firepower to his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, has enlisted former Representative Tony Coelho of California as a top strategist, several Gore advisers said today.

The advisers said Mr. Gore was turning to Mr. Coelho, a former House majority whip who became an investment banker in New York, out of a sense that his campaign was lacking direction and had been diminished by favorable publicity about his rival, former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

Mr. Gore and Mr. Coelho have had a series of meetings to discuss his role and met here as recently as this weekend, Gore advisers said.

Some of Mr. Gore's advisers said that they were not certain of Mr. Coelho's title, that it might not have been worked out, but that he would play a central strategic role in the campaign. It was not clear how that would affect Mr. Gore's campaign manager, Craig R. Smith, a former White House political director.

Chris Lehane, Mr. Gore's spokesman, would not confirm Mr. Coelho's role with the campaign. Mr. Lehane said only, ''I can't comment at this time beyond the fact that they're obviously friends.''

Mr. Coelho did not return calls to his Washington office today.

He and Mr. Gore first knew each other when they served together in the House. More recently, the Vice President and Mr. Coelho have worked together on issues for the disabled. Mr. Coelho had epilepsy and has long been a spokesman for people dealing with epilepsy.

In the 1980's, Mr. Coelho was a rising star in the Democratic Party and was known as one of the party's most prodigious fund-raisers. But he abruptly resigned his House seat in 1989 after accusations of financial impropriety in his personal investments. No charges were ever brought against him.

Mr. Coelho re-emerged in the political spotlight in the summer of 1994, when President Clinton brought him to the Democratic National Committee as a senior strategist dispatched to help save the party's sagging fortunes in the elections that November.

Less than two months before the election, Mr. Coelho told USA Today that 1994 would be ''a normal, off-year election'' and not as devastating as many Democrats feared. It was devastating, with Republicans retaking the House for the first time in half a century. Once again, he returned to investment banking.

One Gore adviser recalled Mr. Coelho's role in 1994 and questioned what he could do for the Vice President. ''He's an extremely smart, capable guy,'' the adviser said. ''But the last time he was brought in to whip something into shape he didn't last very long. I'm not sure he knows how to wield that whip.''

Gore advisers insisted that they were not worried about accusations surrounding Mr. Coelho's resignation from the House after nearly a decade, even though Mr. Gore himself had been buffeted by questions about his fund-raising in the 1996 campaign.

One Democratic strategist who supports Mr. Gore said Mr. Coelho was ''a piker by today's standards'' in terms of the accusations that swirled around him. The strategist added, ''And that was years and years and years ago.''

In perhaps another sign of Mr. Gore's potential weakness, the Republican National Committee said today that it had told its research department to devote half its time to scrutinizing Mr. Bradley's record.

David Israelite, the party's director of political and governmental affairs, noted in a memorandum to the Republican national chairman, Jim Nicholson, that Mr. Gore's poll ratings had slumped and that Mr. Bradley's were improving.

''Based on this most recent confirmation of what our earlier research has indicated, I have directed our research department to shift its focus to Bill Bradley a full 50 percent of the time,'' Mr. Israelite wrote. ''We will continue to monitor the situation.''

Clifford D. May, a Republican Party spokesman, said, ''We think that at this point there are two candidates for the Democratic nomination and the voting public deserves to know as much as possible about both of them.''

But Mr. Lehane, Mr. Gore's spokesman, attacked the memorandum as a ploy to make Mr. Gore appear vulnerable.

''Their strategy is pretty obvious,'' he said. ''If they pretend like they're attacking our opponents, by implication it's intended to show that we have been weakened by their attacks on us.''